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  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Calgary Area Meetup is set for Saturday July 12th at 10am. The signup thread is here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Mill arrived

DPittman said:
You'll need both 7/16 and 12mm drawbars.
Click to expand...
I have purchased ‘Inch and Metric’ collets for my ‘King Mill’ (KC15-VS).
The drawbar is a 7/16”-20 thread.
.
I believe the Craftex mills are very similar in details.
Unless you requested ‘fancy’ options.
 
Mike R said:
R8 spindle nose is nice - gives lots of options for tool holding. I saw mention of ER32 or ER40 - my choice is ER32 simply due to the collets being a bit cheaper and easier to find, as well as the ER40 collet being rather big when trying to use smaller tools (been there done that). You may even consider an ER20 or ER16 collet for small stuff.
You can also later on consider some TTS tooling. Basically - its a tool holder that fits into a 19.05mm (3/4") R8 collet that is slightly modified. It lets you relatively quickly swap out tools that are used alot. More a benefit for CNC guys like me but if you got into a job where you needed to swap between 2 or more tools alot it could be a benefit.

+1 on a DRO on a mill (XY axis min but get a display that will show Z and can add the scale later), such a must have in my opinion, beats forgetting where you are and how many turns you cranked...

And a boring head. The number of times you need to make a nice round hole in a part that won't fit on your lathe is quite surprising (was for me!). Boring head to the rescue. But that needs boring bars. You can use lathe boring bars with replaceable carbide inserts, really opens up a world of possibilities in terms of usefulness of the boring head over the standard brazed carbide boring bars on offer at Busybee. (if you get a metric head that takes metric bars it gets a lot cheaper - always my concern as a hobbyist but not everyone's - some like to buy high quality and I respect that - I choose not to with my hobby bucks).
Click to expand...
So I have made my A-Zon shopping list with the advice posted, I was really lucky with the lathe as it came used with thousands of dollars worth of tools and goodies. (thank you again to the gentleman I acquired it from)

I value advice of the experienced, no matter how budget friendly or high end your tastes are. As a future though on dro's, glass or magnetic scales, I'm leaning on magnetic,

thank you,
 


I have the same machine, very happy with its capabilities as my own capabilities are one step above newbie.

I did add a power drive for the table and I made a 2” tall spacer to raise the head mechanism further from the column, longer bolts were needed and I machined the spacer on my lathe with corresponding male and female surfaces to mate to the existing column and head gear components. The spacer increased the clearance between table and quill so my Vevor indexing / rotary table has working clearance.
 
canuck750 said:


I have the same machine, very happy with its capabilities as my own capabilities are one step above newbie.

I did add a power drive for the table and I made a 2” tall spacer to raise the head mechanism further from the column, longer bolts were needed and I machined the spacer on my lathe with corresponding male and female surfaces to mate to the existing column and head gear components. The spacer increased the clearance between table and quill so my Vevor indexing / rotary table has working clearance.
Click to expand...
Have you watched double boost? he has done up a 6" spacer and quite fun to watch, especially the out takes.

link


cheers....
 
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Nice video, even if I only understood half of what that gent was saying!
That’s the only time I can say massive and 6” in the same sentence, makes my 2” seem pretty limp.
I also added a 3 axis DRO, a great aid for my very basic capabilities, cheap on EBay and pretty easy to install.
Enjoy your new mill!
 
canuck750 said:
Nice video, even if I only understood half of what that gent was saying!
That’s the only time I can say massive and 6” in the same sentence, makes my 2” seem pretty limp.
I also added a 3 axis DRO, a great aid for my very basic capabilities, cheap on EBay and pretty easy to install.
Enjoy your new mill!
Click to expand...
cheers,
he's areal character to watch, a DRO and eventually a VFD, a fella can really trick these machines out.
 
canuck750 said:
I did add a power drive for the table and I made a 2” tall spacer to raise the head mechanism further from the column, longer bolts were needed and I machined the spacer on my lathe with corresponding male and female surfaces to mate to the existing column and head gear components
Click to expand...
I'm curious did you have any sort of plans to follow or did you just make it to fit by measuring your mill components? I'm also wondering why you chose only 2 inches of rise? I'd like to make one for mine about 5-6 inches but not sure yet how I'd go about drilling the through holes that deep.
 
LenVW said:
Don’t be in too big a hurry to buy the whole list of tooling ‘above’.
You will start getting into machining that will ‘require’ some of the tooling.
Some of the rotary tables and gauge block sets can really add up ($$$).
Buy tools as you need them and they will be more valuable to you.
Click to expand...

I certainly agree, but he wanted a big list and I obliged!

Apparently he has 10 grand burning a hole in his pocket. He will need to buy a lot of stuff he prolly won't use to burn that much cash...... (Insert big evil grin here!)

I don't know about anyone else but I LOVE helping others spend their money!

Seriously though, it's just a list to pick from, not an exhaustive recommendation. That said, I don't think there is anything on the list that I don't have and use. And there is also lots of stuff that I have and use that isn't on the list. Therefore, I believe it's a valid place to start.
 
Susquatch said:
I certainly agree, but he wanted a big list and I obliged!

Apparently he has 10 grand burning a hole in his pocket. He will need to buy a lot of stuff he prolly won't use to burn that much cash...... (Insert big evil grin here!)

I don't know about anyone else but I LOVE helping others spend their money!

Seriously though, it's just a list to pick from, not an exhaustive recommendation. That said, I don't think there is anything on the list that I don't have and use. And there is also lots of stuff that I have and use that isn't on the list. Therefore, I believe it's a valid place to start.
Click to expand...
Hey all good,
A person can't be "level, plumb and square" without a few basic tools, krazy glue and bamboo doesn't hold drill bits worth crap.
 
DPittman said:
I'm curious did you have any sort of plans to follow or did you just make it to fit by measuring your mill components? I'm also wondering why you chose only 2 inches of rise? I'd like to make one for mine about 5-6 inches but not sure yet how I'd go about drilling the through holes that deep.
Click to expand...
I made a 2” riser only because it was the size of steel round solid I had in the approximate diameter I needed and it was all the clearance I thought I would need. I will probably make a taller spacer one of these days but would keep it around 4”. I was able to use off the shelf bolts and machined the hex heads into T shaped heads to ride in the column flange just like the stock bolts.

For the power drive, I installed it on the right side of the table and I had to make an adapter spacer to fit between the right end of the table and the power drive (Vevor)
I can take some pictures of the spacer / adaptor plate, it bolts to the table and has separate bolts for the drive. It was just something I came up with on my own as I tried to figure out how to mount the drive.

Jim
 
I can vouch for buying just about Susquatch's list of stuff. I bought a combination mill / lathe a couple of years ago because I have a very small space. Certainly I have spent at least twice as much on the tooling as on thew machine itself. And buying 'kits' or 'sets' is a waste of money. Amazon etc have next day shipping, so just buy what you need when you need it
 
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